He crossed into the target's road. He was very calm. He knew that because of the even pattern of his breathing, and because there was no tightness in his legs.

The house was well-placed for him, almost exactly halfway between two street lights. A white Metro was parked in the driveway behind the low wrought-iron gates. The car was backed up against the green-painted garage doors. He moved silently along the pavement in his worn old trainer shoes. When he was beyond a street light's reach and still short of the target's house, he dropped to his knees and re tied his shoe's laces. He turned and his eyes swept the road behind him. No dogs, no cats, no taxis. He stood again and looked up the road. He was against a fence and the hedge above it. He stood very still.

He heard the door open.

He heard, "Go on, you little bugger, get on with it."

He heard the door pulled shut.

Jon Jo went forward. He moved fast now. He came to the wrought-iron gates and swung his leg and his bag over, steadied himself, then brought the other leg over, and came down, lightly, onto the tarmacadam driveway. He crouched, waiting. No sound. No light. He walked to the deeper shadow of the passageway between the house and the garage.

The target's car was a Volvo. It would be inside the garage. The Metro would be the wife's. It would make just as much pain to blow the wife away, very influential people British establishment wives, and if they lost one of their kind it might raise the panic scream a ratchet higher. But the target was the driver of the Volvo. Forty times harder to get at. And the Army Council would have the skin off his back if he took the easy road, the Metro.

He reckoned the target would have believed himself at threat and that precautions would be in place. The best location for an electronic beam inside the garage was across the doorway.